Friday, September 30, 2016

RELATION OF IMMIGRATION TO THE AMERICAN FARMER

The following is the very admirable paper
delivered by Mr. Henry Howes of Cuyler at the Farmers' institute in Cortland
last week:

Mr.
Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen: It has been said, and I think very wisely,
that "The highest duty of a nation is self preservation," and, if
this be true of a nation, it should apply equally as well to a class or an
individual. I do not believe that any nation has a right to exterminate other
nations for the purpose of building itself up or that any class or person has that
right, but that every individual class or nation has the right of self
protection and they should exercise that right. The last census of the United
States showed that our country was increasing rapidly in population, and that as
a whole it had gained more in wealth in the preceding ten years than it had in
any other ten years of its existence. This is something for every one of us to
be proud of, but, while we have viewed with satisfaction the growth and prosperity
of our country as a whole, we as investors and laborers in a business that for
the ten years from 1880 until 1890 was far from prosperous or profitable have
had some cause for sorrow. The depreciation in the value of eastern farm
property during those years was at a greater per cent than ever known before,
not excepting the ten years immediately after the close of the war. Now what was the cause of this unfortunate
condition of the farming industry? We know that there have been many. But one
which has not seemed to attract the attention of farmers very much has in my
opinion been one of the chief causes. It has been the policy of our government
to stimulate immigration. The whole world has been given to understand that this
was a free country and it has been demonstrated that it was nearly so. Now the
question uppermost in our minds is, can we keep it so or are we to become yoke
wearers and burden bearers to be controlled at some future day by this element
which we have allowed to be planted here? To the honest manly immigrant anxious
to become an American citizen in all that the name implies and sturdily able to
support himself, as unwilling to wrong others as to suffer a wrong at their hands,
we cordially extend our hands now as we have in the past. We receive every year scores of thousands,
even hundreds of thousands of immigrants whose presence is a boon to the land,
who themselves become good citizens, as good as any in the country and whose
children are Americans of the best type. But we also receive scores of
thousands and it is to be feared under certain conditions we may receive
hundreds of thousands of immigrants who are as emphatically a curse to us as
their fellows are a blessing. They may be a curse in any one of several ways.
If they refuse to assimilate with us, and are indeed incapable of such assimilation
then they should be kept out. Again, if the immigrant can be assimilated, but
if it must be the work of many generations, he should only be admitted in small
quantities and not tax too severely the national digestion, and again. if he is
of immoral character, he should be kept out entirely. Murderers, convicts and
felons of every kind should be rigidly excluded and we have no place here for
the anarchist, the dynamiter or the socialist. Over this country there is room
for but one flag, and of all flags there is none more alien to the Stars and
Stripes than the bloody flag of anarchy. Again if the immigrants are morally
unobjectionable, if they are used to low scale of living—and nearly all who
land here now are of this class—they should not be allowed to come here and
practically given our best farming lands and immediately brought into direct
competition with us, their mode of living being such that they can subsist
where an ordinary farmer would starve.

The United States has been offered as an
asylum for the oppressed of all nations, but this should be withdrawn when the
oppressed of other nations become our oppressors.

The people who come to our country now may
be derived into three classes: viz., the
thrifty immigrant who by the most rigid economy in his foreign home has been
able to save a little money and on his arrival here, as I said before, is given
land and comes directly in competition with us and has helped to cause an
overproduction in every farm product.

The second class—I hardly know what to name
them—they are the men who at home in their native land are plotting to
overthrow their government, they become afraid to stay there and so come to
this free country to try to educate the people as to what freedom means.

The last class is the pauper class which is
a very large class. I want to give you an extract from the report of the New
York State Board of Charities and Correction. They say after giving statistics,
"It may be well to add that it is the general impression of those most familiar
with the subject that the extraordinary flood of immigrants coming to our
shores of recent years do not so much represent voluntary immigration as that
which is stimulated.

"Foreign steamship lines have found
that there is no cargo so profitable as a human one that loads and unloads
itself and virtually imposes no cost for care. With this view little care if
any apparently is paid by the lines to the kind of passengers, whether fitted
or unfitted for self support and it is said that to secure steerages full of passengers special efforts are made by runners and agents scouring the interior
and remote parts of Europe to induce all they can to go to America
even if in so doing they sell their little possessions and have but mere
pittances for their support on landing here in a strange land, strange in tongue
and with ways and activities that they cannot in their day and generation assimilate
with or become accustomed to, especially while they congregate as they do into
city districts and form so to speak separate bodies of different nationalities
retaining and using their own language and maintaining their native habits with hardly a perceptible effort to become 'Americanized.'

"On their part much as we should like
that process to become spontaneous and universal to all claiming citizenship
with us what wonder then that so many find their way to become beneficiaries of
the public and other charitable institutions that its cities and the state of New
York itself now abound with covering all forms of relief. Yet all perpetually
crowded, requiring new ones annually to be built or existing ones enlarged or
expanded with branches to accommodate increasing patronage."

Now pardon me for one more extract this from
the committee on foreign relations at the national grange held at Concord, N. H.,
last November. "Your committee views with alarm the constant flow of
immigrants from the European nations though we welcome with hospitality the
industrious and the worthy. Yet when we consider that more than half a million
landed on our shores within the last twelve months and when no one doubts or
denies that the status of manhood and womanhood of these immigrants are getting
lower in the scale of humanity each year as compared with the former days of
our Republic, it has become alarming. Thousands upon top of thousands of the
scum, the drift, the debris of pauperized depravity continue without any
abatement. They are a threat to morality, an injury to our honest wage earners.
They vitiate the sanctity of the ballot and sow seeds of discontent. This
Republic will prosper just so long as the man who labors is self-respecting, hard-working,
thrifty and a fairly successful citizen and the minute he ceases to be such,
that minute the whole country is in danger."

I do not think we need to be alarmed about
our lawyers, clergymen or professional men being brought into unfair
competition with immigrants entering the same profession, but we have every
reason to believe that the standard of the men who till the farms, dig the
mines and build the houses is lowered by undue competition with the multitudes
poured upon our shores through the steerage cabins of the countless European
steamships.

Now what seems to be for the best interest
of the farmer to encourage competition and over production, to allow people to
come here to advance theories entirely opposed to good government, to keep our
gates wide open and become the asylum, poor house and jail for the whole world (China
excepted) or to use our influence as a class to bring about some relief from
this one evil?

A Good
Performance.

There was a fair sized audience at our cosy
little Opera House last evening to witness for the first lime the presentation of
the "Two Old Cronies," The entertainment combined a large number of
good specialties. The dialogue fairly bristled with funny sayings and witty
repartee which kept the audience in a continual roar during the entire evening.
John B. Wills and Monte F. Collins in the title role created no end of
amusement and their "make up" would have caused a graven image to laugh.
Miss Norma Wills, captured the audience by the rendition of several popular
airs in a highly pleasing manner. The support was all good, Misses Madelain
Marshall and Violet St. Clair being especially worthy of mention.

One of
the best and most rapid stage shifts of scenery ever seen in Cortland was made
when the incandescents were turned out for a few seconds on scene on board the
ship Columbia and when they were re-lighted an Indian encampment appeared, as
if by magic, on the stage. Taken all in all—the new songs, dances, music and specialties
and the originality of the action—it was thought by some who were there to be
one of the best performances given here this season.

Judge
Parker's Order on Brewer and Brown Injunction.

Some of the parties interested in the legal
complications in which the Cortland
Top and Rail Co. is now involved have called our attention to the fact that the
paragraph in our yesterdays issue in reference to Judge Parker's decision in the
matter of the injunction granted E. H. Brewer and D. H. Brown was not a full
statement of that decision.

The order reads as follows: "I do
hereby order that said injunction order is hereby set aside, vacated and
annulled as to the judgments and the executions thereon in favor of George
Bennett and John Bennett and Charles Kinley against Cortland Top and Rail
Company, Limited, and that the sheriff of Cortland county be and is hereby authorized
to proceed under such executions, such order otherwise to remain in full force and
effect. And it is further ordered that plaintiffs in this action, within ten days
from this date, execute and deliver and file a good and sufficient bond or undertaking
in form, substance and with sureties to be approved by the county judge of
Cortland county, in the sum of $5,000 in lieu of the bond or undertaking
presented upon the application for said injunction order; such undertaking to
be for the benefit of the said defendants other than John Bennett and

George
Bennett and Charles Kinley, and in default thereof said injunction order is wholly
vacated and annulled."

PAGE
FOUR—EDITORIALS.

The
Village Ticket.

The Republican village ticket this year is a
more than ordinarily strong one.

Calvin P. Walrad, the nominee for president,
has already filled that office very acceptably for one term, and stands (among
our most solid, judicious and trusted business men. During his long mercantile
career and as treasurer and president of the Cortland Savings bank he has gained
a wide acquaintance and won the confidence of the community. When nominated
before for the office the Democratic convention put no candidate in the field
against him—a recognition of fitness such as is rarely made.

Harry Swan, the nominee for trustee in the
First ward, is a representative working man, and is now holding the office for
which he is again a candidate. He has many elements of popularity, and during
his present term has been diligent and faithful in the performance of his
duties. His renomination he can fairly claim as an endorsement of past service
and as a promise of future support.

T. C. Scudder, Jr., nominee for trustee in
the Third ward, is a resident of Cortland of many years standing, widely known,
and universally respected. He is an accurate, careful, common-sense man, and
will be a valuable member of the village board.

Wm. Corcoran, for police justice, is one of
the most prominent Irish Republicans of Cortland, and was president of the
Tippecanoe Marching club last fall. He is one of the younger members of the
Cortland county bar, has good natural abilities and legal acquirements, and
popular manners. He has served acceptably one term as town clerk of
Cortlandville and was reelected to that office at the last town meeting.

N. J. Parsons, for assessor, is an admirable
selection. Mr. Parsons is an excellent judge of property, candid and judicial
in forming his conclusions, and given to doing whatever he undertakes with
energy and thoroughness. He can be trusted to perform the somewhat difficult
and delicate duties of the office to which he is called with eminent success.

Mr. P. J. Peck, for village treasurer, is as
well fitted for the place as any one who could be found in Cortland. As the
popular and efficient book-keeper and cashier of the National bank of Cortland
he has had just the training necessary for the discharge of the duties of the
office, and the accounts will come from his hands neatly and systematically
kept and balancing to a cent.

W. E. Phelps, for collector, is a popular
and in every way satisfactory nomination. Mr. Phelps will look after the work
of the office himself and can be trusted to do it thoroughly and energetically.

Of the nominees for Commissioners of Union
Free School district No. 1 for full term, Messrs. D. P. Wallace and F. W.
Kingsbury are old members of the board, of tried and proven efficiency, and Mr.
W. J. Perkins, who takes the place of F. E. Whitmore, is too well-known as one
of our leading business men to need commendation. Mr. Wallace was one of the
first men who came upon the school board by election, and has for several years
been its valued and valuable presiding officer. Mr. F. D. Smith, who is
nominated for two years to fill out the unexpired term of Mr. E. Frank Squires,
resigned, has already served on the board by appointment, and shown himself a
useful member. Mr. A. S. Brown, nominated for one year to fill out an unexpired
term, is the present popular county treasurer of this county, and to his
experience in that office he adds the training gained in an active and
successful business career. He fills the measure of the idea conveyed by the
word "hustler," and can be trusted to do any work that falls to him
"with neatness and dispatch."

Though the usual Democratic raid will probably
be made on one or two candidates, the Republican line would seem to be strong
enough to resist a great deal of hard pounding.